NASA: Radioisotope Power Systems

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This is a multimedia overview of RPS (radioisotope power systems), a type of nuclear energy technology that uses heat to produce electricity for powering spacecraft. The heat is produced by the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238. RPS systems have been in use for more than 50 years, and could continue to support missions to some of the most extreme environments in the solar system. Advantages of RPS include: continuous operation over long-duration space missions, largely independent of ch